Archived Feature Articles

Chick Newman, DVM

This site is being completely overhauled with a new, cleaner layout and updated information on numerous topics of interest to pet owners, pet lovers and veterinary professionals.

During the transition, which will take several months, some of the older pages (from the website created in 1997) will still be available via the Other Topics links on this page. One by one, those pages will be replaced with revised, more streamlined versions that provide improved readability and contain the most recently available updates to content. It is hoped that these improvements will make this site attractive to new viewers and promote a frequent return viewership.

This month the featured topic is focused on DNA Testing for inherited disease. This article describes the current science of genetic testing for heritable diseases in our companion animals. The entire genome for dogs and cats has already been sequenced and science will now be able to provide a better understanding of heritable diseases, such as degenerative myelopathy, a devastating neurological disease which affects German Sherherd dogs and Welch Corgi dogs with a greater frequency than in other breeds.

Previous featured articles can be found using the links at the bottom of the links window, to the left

Newman Veterinary Medical Services provides temporary veterinary services to companion animal veterinary hospitals and clinics all over the Puget Sound region of Washington State. Dr. Newman graduated Washington State University, School of Veterinary Medicine, in 1991, following a lengthy career in bioresearch.

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New Research in Regenerative Therapies

In a subsequent news article (coming soon), exciting research for treating osteoarthritis in dogs using autologous platelets was presented. Technical issues in platelet therapy have to due with the ability to adequately separate blood components: platelets (which provide growth factors and an environment for repair), other cell types (e.g. White Blood Cells, which are proinflammatory and can negatively affect local repair) and plasma which contains a large milieux of factors and cofactors that can mitigate the functions of the other components. Currently, two companies invested in this technology for veterinary patients are Harvest Technologies and Anthrex. Currently, it appears that platelet preparations must be relatively free of WBCs (less than .0005% of platelet number) to be efficacious.

Ongoing research into other regenerative therapies for this osteoarthritis as well as for other musculoskeletal injuries is promising. These include autologous-conditioned serum (ACS) and the generation of interleukin1-antagonist receptor protein (IRAP), as well as stem cell therapy (SCT).

ACS-ARAP

Interleulin-1 is a family of proinflammatory molecules (aka “cytokines”) produced by macrophages and monocytes ( types of white blood cells) and other cells types in blood and tissue in response to tissue injury or insult. IRAP blocks the ability of Interleukin-1 to bind to its natural receptor and mediate inflammation (and the resulting pain). Because ILRA can block inflammation, it is already being used in human medicine for treatment of various conditions For example, IRAP is approved in humans as a therapy for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, because it reduces symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and slows the progressive joint destruction. The system to produce therapeutic amounts of IRAP is known as ACS and involved incubating monocytes derived from the patient with etched glass beads, which apparently stimulates synthesis of the IRAP. The preparation is then centrifuged to removed the cellular material and the resulting serum is injected into the appropriate sites of pain. The commercial products are Orthokine® by Orthogen AG, Dusseldorf, Germany and under the name of IRAPII® for equine and canine veterinary species by Arthrex®, Inc.. Apparently, Orthokine® therapy has been used by some famous athletes:, notably Kobe Bryant of the LA Lakers, the golfer Freddie Couples, and A-Rod of the Yankees.

SCT

Stem cells were originally perceived as primitive, pluripotent cells that were capable of differentiating to become any type of cell in the body. Once diffentiated, it was assumed that the cell was forever committed to remain in the differentiated cell type. However, we now know that is not true. Differentiated cells can return to an undifferentiated form, when provided with the “right” signals. Stem cell therapy now involves harvesting cells (e.g. fat cells), provoking them to become undifferentiated stem cells, then injecting these into the sites of inflammation. While it was presumed at one point that these newly introduced cells would differentiate into healthy cells of the local cell type, replacing the older diseased cells, it turns out this is not true. Rather the stem cells are acting to modulate the local environment to stimulate increased vascularity and blood supply to the area, as well as recruiting local stem cells to effect repair. While research is promising, definitive proof of efficacy is not yet available. Nevertheless, the technology is made available to veterinarians by companies, such as Vet-Stem (https://www.vet-stem.com/). A number of veterinarians are trained to utilize stem cells on dogs.